


yet, I can't stay

by xathira



Series: Beacember 2020 [4]
Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Bad end, Beacember 2020, Beatrice Beacember, Other, nothing good happens that's for sure, what if Beatrice went through with betraying the boys?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27904018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xathira/pseuds/xathira
Summary: Beatrice stops by Adelaide's cottage.For the Beacember prompt "betrayal"
Series: Beacember 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2043295
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	yet, I can't stay

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fic for the [Beatrice Beacember](https://beatriceoftheday.tumblr.com/post/636680694147530752) prompt "betrayal."

The sky is a swath of blue-grey wool, the kind of gloomy overcast that can’t decide if it wants to rain or not. Long meadow grass and stalks of wheat sway lazily under the caress of a cool breeze. The air stirring Beatrice’s hair carries a faint breath of petrichor from the east… wet earth and damp moss, mushrooms and pinesap, scents that open her lungs and push her anxiety down into crevices and corners where she can pretend she isn’t feeling it. This is the sort of afternoon she’d prefer to spend curled up in by the hearth with a book, or sitting at the table to work on mending the garments her rambunctious siblings are always tearing in their play. The clouds are heavy. Suffocating. But she has somewhere she needs to be.

Her parents know that Beatrice works as an errand girl, but that is all they know. She has never told them her employer’s name, or how they met, or why she keeps taking jobs even though her heart sinks through her boots whenever she’s sent to fetch supplies. If her family knew that Beatrice labored for Adelaide of the Pasture—the wicked witch whose scissors broke their curse—they would ask _why._ They’d want to know if Beatrice sold herself to buy their freedom… or if she’d traded something else, and in doing so done something even worse.

No. Let them think that she’s merely being responsible, earning income to help buffer what they’d lost while they couldn’t work the mill with their wings. 

The dirt road ends at a ramshackle building that looks more like a lopsided shed than a stone cottage. It is ancient and overgrown with a shawl of ivy, the leaves of which are blood-dipped for the end of autumn. Here and there are signs that the hut hasn’t been totally abandoned: candlelight gleams from the front-facing window; a flower pot that hadn’t been there last year sits with the withered stalks of sunflowers; vines have been freshly cleared from the door frame, making its creeping seem intentional rather than wild. If one didn’t know better, they might think the cottage was cute. Comfortable, even.

Beatrice knows better.

She hefts up the heavy basket she carries in one arm to knock on the pockmarked door. “Adelaide! I’m here! Open up, will ya?”

She hears the patter of feet trotting to the greet her. The door swings open before she can pound on the wood again. A little boy looks up at her—through her—with eyes like glass marbles, her startled face reflected in the polished teapot on his head.

“Oh,” Beatrice slips. “Sorry, Greg. Is… is Adelaide home?”

The little boy doesn’t answer her. He never does. Beatrice doesn’t think he can. Instead, he steps backward with the precision of a mechanical windup doll to allow her inside. Beatrice hesitates (she always hesitates) and grits her teeth when she treads over the threshold.

Above her, the ceiling is a knotted cluster of yarn in every color imaginable. It hangs downward in delicate loops and heavy coils, braided and rolled and wound back on itself in patterns that make Beatrice sick if she stares at it for too long. A few deliberate threads trail toward the floor and halt at Greg; he’s tethered like a marionette, wrists and elbows, knees and ankles, and a plaited circle about his neck like the collar of a puppy. The bindings don’t appear to bother him… Beatrice had only seen him wince when she’d attempted to free him the first and only time, and his clear distress in addition to the terror of Adelaide catching her had made the girl give up in a fit of frustrated tears.

“Adelaide? I got what you ordered…”

No reply. Greg offers his arm as if he is a coat rack to accept her basket. Beatrice regards him dubiously, unsure if he’ll be able to carry it. The bundle of tweedy Swaledale wool had made her sweat as she trudged from Dorsetturn, and she’s used to backbreaking labor at the mill—

Of course, Greg is probably used to backbreaking labor by now.

She hands off the basket. Greg dips a bit under the weight, adjusting, and scampers off to a different part of the cottage to store the wool in one of Adelaide’s caches. Beatrice trails after him, starting up a conversation that she doesn’t expect the little boy to participate in.

“What have you been up to, Greg? Busy getting everything ready for the winter?”

Her voice sounds too loud, too high and reedy despite the muffling half-finished quilts and expensive textiles draped over every wall. It’s like being wrapped in a coffin. 

Greg knows exactly where the wool should go. He carefully tucks it away in a free spot among several other bundles—bluish Black Welsh Mountain, springy Shropshire, mottled charcoal-and-cream Jacob—and toddles off into a different room, to continue whatever chore he’d been working on when Beatrice showed up. There’s no indication that he’s paying attention to Beatrice, or is even cognizant that she’s talking. His sole concern is organizing Adelaide’s sewing supplies… gathering the loose threads the witch left lying around, stacking up quilting squares… he’s so focused and active that Beatrice could fool herself into believing that Greg _enjoys_ what the witch has him do. Surely this is better than wandering the woods, starving, forever looking over his shoulder for the watchful eyes of the hunting Beast…

Beatrice realizes that Adelaide is in fact not home. Her hollow-beating heart kicks a bit faster. She rests her hand on Greg’s shoulder, disappointed but not surprised that he keeps sorting needles rather than glancing at her. “Hey, Greg… where’s your brother? Where’s Wirt?”

At his brother’s name, Greg pauses. Beatrice doesn’t breathe. It doesn’t work consistently, but every once in a blue moon Greg will act as if he _remembers_ that he has a brother. He’ll stop what he’s doing, and peer around himself in a ponderous show of searching for somebody who should be by his side. Each time, Beatrice goes still as stone, petrified that she’ll disturb what could be a true resurfacing. Each time, she is let down.

Greg bites his lower lip, considering. Then he sticks another pin into Adelaide’s pincushion, and carries on his duties.

Beatrice has to remind herself not to get depressed. Greg can’t feel sadness, so she has no right to either.

“Okay, that’s fine… I’ll go find him myself. It’s not like he can get lost in here. Catch ya later, Greg.”

She’s been in Adelaide’s abode enough that it’s not difficult to navigate, even when the layout changes to accomodate the hag’s growing collection of supplies. Wirt isn’t in the bedroom, changing the sheets or shaking out the rug; he isn’t in the kitchen washing dishes or cooking dinner for Adelaide; he isn’t in the forbidden back room, where Adelaide keeps the unholy trinkets that her master occasionally drops off. Beatrice lingers at the door to the latter hovel, unable to enter herself. If Wirt isn’t in the house… does that mean…

A terrible ache seizes her chest. Had he broken free of the witch’s spell? Had he left the cottage, to rescue Greg later? Or—worse, a nightmare that has Beatrice ill with bile—had Adelaide lost patience for the boy, still clumsy in spite of the strings controlling his movements?

Beatrice digs her nails into her forearms. Not even a miracle could break Wirt free. And as for Adelaide _discarding_ Wirt… that didn’t make sense, either. It’d been hard enough for the crone to find child servants to begin with.

“Don’t tell me that rotten gorgon put him in…”

There’s a broom closet built into one wall like an afterthought. All the things kept inside are broken, items that Adelaide doesn’t care to fix but that she hasn’t made her mind up about throwing away. It is the only part of the cottage allowed to gather dust and cobwebs. Beatrice grunts as she forces the rusted-hinge door open and blinks to help her eyes adjust to the thick, sooty darkness within. Along one wall, bent broom handles and the splintered frame of an old loom jut outward like crooked teeth. Tattered yarn catches on nails and forms cat’s-cradles on the ceiling. The mess is worse than usual, but Beatrice thinks she sees something—someone—slumped in the very back, obscured by years of junk. 

Old, useless anger urges Beatrice into the gloom. “She did. Again. What did you do to get put into time-out this time, idiot?”

Wirt is propped half-sitting against the back wall, chin dipped toward his chest and eyes closed as if he is sleeping. Lint mats his messy hair and patches his clothes, illustrating how long he must have been abandoned here. His arms hang lax by his sides. Beatrice can’t see any obvious wounds as she creeps closer, a frown twisting her features, but that doesn’t mean there _aren’t_ any. She’ll have to check.

“For once I’d like to kick that old biddy around myself… she deserves it.” Beatrice appraises him critically, searching for bruises or cuts. “If only you weren’t such a freaking pushover.” She picks up each of his hands and turns them over to inspect his palms; several red welts from needle pinpricks stud his fingertips. “Still can’t sew, can you? Shameful…”

These aren’t the worst injuries she’s ever found on the boy. Once, she’d seen a purple-green bruise blooming on his temple like the skin of a plum; if not for the insidious fear of being cursed again, or the possibility of the boys getting hurt even worse, Beatrice would’ve buried Adalaide’s prized pinking shears straight into the witch’s jugular.

She’s a coward. 

When she glances up, Wirt’s eyes have opened, his lids shuttering like those of a porcelain doll. He looks at nothing. Beatrice might as well not be there, for all he reacts to her presence. This shouldn’t vex her; the Wirt that would’ve blushed at her proximity, who might’ve made some wry quip about them being alone in a closet, is gone. All the wool in his head has suffocated the dear personality that used to exist, and any pieces that dared to survive will have been strangled by the skeins that form chains around his joints. 

Beatrice drops his hands and ignores how they drop like a scarecrow’s. A low sigh falls from her lips; she brushes Wirt’s overgrown forelock to the side in a gesture that is nearly affectionate. “Jeez… why do you have to keep making Adelaide mad? You really need to be more careful…”

For a heartbeat, something flickers in Wirt’s eyes: a thin spark of awareness, thrown from a coal that should be dead. Beatrice feels it leap across the space between them and winces at the burn.

“Be,” he mumbles. His eyebrows slowly knit together, forming the ghost of a facial expression. “Be…?”

Her heart thunders. She couldn’t have heard that. Adelaide’s boys don’t _talk._

“Be careful,” Beatrice whispers to him, her chest aching with a sudden cruel hope that crushes lungs and heart under breathless, beating pressure. “Wirt…?” 

He looks right at her. The flat corduroy brown of his eyes becomes the clarity of sunlight through strong tea, the warmth of living fur instead of cold dead pelt—and Beatrice knows that he _sees_ her, sees _her,_ and he wasn’t trying to say “Be,” he’s trying to say _her name…_

“Beatrice,” she tells him frantically. Her brittle voice cracks on the syllables. She takes one of his limp hands in her own, squeezes it hard, and convinces herself that he tentatively squeezes back. Alive. Responsive. Not a puppet stuffed in a dark space, but human. _Alive._ “You remember, right? It’s _me,_ Wirt—it’s Beatrice—”

“Beatrice,” the boy mutters. The title is quiet, tentative… but it fans that feeble spark of awareness into a gleam of recognition that almost, _almost_ resembles the brightness that Beatrice remembers from before. 

She flings herself at that light like a moth to a flame, desperation a noose around her throat. 

“Y-Yeah, you got it! Beatrice, remember? The frog ferry and that insane old man’s mansion, that stupid tavern, sitting in the woods and finding food for Greg and me… I was a bluebird, you were a pilgrim...”

“Greg,” says Wirt abruptly, eyelids lifting wider. The strength of his grip on her hand is sturdier, as though Beatrice’s touch is a path he’s seeking in the shadow. Another emotion fights its way to the surface of his irises: sadness. “We… were… lost…?” He swallows, the sound a dry click. Does Adelaide ever give the boys anything to eat or drink? Do they even _need_ to eat or drink anymore? How long has he been cooped up, shunned, waiting for Beatrice to visit?

Beatrice regrets the pain that remembering must cause… but she regrets ever betraying her boys in the first place even more. If pain is what will wake Wirt up—if hurting him again will save him from what she’s done—then Beatrice will cut and tear and rend until she’s ripped her way to the Wirt she used to know.

“I’ll help you,” Beatrice hisses fiercely, blinking past the sting of tears. She touches his face, curls her fingers around his jaw, holds him steady so that he can read the map of her face and find his way back. Wirt tilts his head subtly toward her palm; Beatrice can’t tell if it’s a reflexive move or a genuine response to comfort. Her crushed heart is bloody pulp. “Do you hear me, Wirt? I’m going to help you and Greg get out of here. I’ll come back for you and bust you both out, and h-help you home like I was supposed to… I just have to f-figure out a plan, so you have to be patient for me, alright? Be patient… and someday I’ll…”

Wirt closes his eyes dreamily. He turns his cheek further into her hand until the heat of his shallow breath feathers her wrist. “Home,” he murmurs. And smiles.

The slight curve of his mouth slices Beatrice like a scythe. She rakes in a loud, shattered-edged inhale, and reaches forward to pull Wirt into a hug—

Adelaide sweeps into the hall behind her with a heavy shuffle of skirts and the rattling cough of a coal miner. Instantly the closet’s temperature plummets, leaving Beatrice’s sweat cold as frost against her skin. The girl is still touching Wirt, holding his hand and cradling the nape of his neck to pull him toward her, and the shock of Adelaide’s arrival has her fingernails spasming into her friend’s flesh. Wirt doesn’t even flinch.

A saccharine cackle breaks itself from the witch’s hacking when she beholds the scene. The sound crawls up Beatrice’s spine like the legs of a wolf spider and buries fangs in her veins. “Oh? What’s this? I hadn’t thought my scrappy little errand girl was interested in playing with dolls...”

“He’s not a doll,” Beatrice grinds out before she can halt her tongue. Once the words are free, the rest of her rage follows, boiling up from her guts to spill over her lips; she pivots from Wirt, flushed, and spears the hag with as much hatred as she can possibly muster. “Do you have to keep them locked up like this all the time? What’s the harm in letting them do chores outside, with some damn fresh air?”

Adelaide shudders at the mention of fresh air and slunks closer, shoving Beatrice aside, to inspect her “doll” for any signs of ill use. When she goes to brush dust from Wirt’s cloak, Beatrice all but snarls at her. “Hush, girl. Do you know how often this foolish poppet trips and scuffs himself after you’ve been by? My dear little servants are delicate things, not to be left out in the elements like a spoiled brat’s toys… ah, blast. See here, you shameless strumpet? You’ve damaged him again…”

The growl dies in Beatrice’s throat at the witch’s clucking. Her murderous glare slides from Adelaide’s gargoyle frame to Wirt’s ever-blank facade…

His half-mast eyes glisten in the dark. As Beatrice watches, a lonesome tear rolls slowly from his left eye, along the side of his nose, and hangs at his chin.

Her composure trembles with that single teardrop. 

Ere Beatrice can shout his name or beg for his freedom, Adelaide tugs on the yarn-spun collar around Wirt’s neck and traces a sigil over his forehead, muttering a staccato spell. The boy’s eyes go round and shiny as new buttons; his lips part around a plea for help or a wordless cry of pain; one more tear chases the first, drawing a wet line down his cheek. Then, with a gentle exhale, Wirt’s body droops—slack and relaxed and empty—and he stares unseeing at the cobwebbed floorboards. Head full of wool. Heart full of nothing. A husk caught in an arachnid’s web, and not the sweet stammering poet-soul that Beatrice traded for a pair of rusty scissors.

The girl muffles a sob behind her fist. Adelaide pretends not to hear the shameful sound and cranes her attention in Beatrice’s direction, mask twisted into pitiless contempt. “You’ll go to Thrawcliffe on the morrow to fetch me another batch of aniline black and mauvine for dyeing. Since you need to learn a lesson about touching other people’s things, you shall receive half your usual fee. Furthermore, you shall drop the shipment off on the doorstep, as it appears you are too easily distracted—”

“Wait,” blurts Beatrice, pulse galloping. “I didn’t mean—”

“Silence, slattern,” Adelaide seethes. “Or would you prefer I hire a _different_ errand girl? Perhaps you miss your wings… it is not only insulted _birds_ who can toss around curses, you know…”

Beatrice swallows harshly and punches down the lump above her collar bones with brutal force. “Sorry,” she eventually rasps. The apology, of course, is not for the loathsome hag… but the poor creature beside her, who is unaware that Beatrice stands a mere yard away from him. “I’ll… be more careful. I promise.”

The witch sniffs at her. “You had better.”

Beatrice is roughly ushered out of the closet. Adelaide slams and locks the door in her wake. Greg obediently waits for both of them in the main room, awaiting orders, none the wiser that his own family is but a few steps away. 

“Thrawcliffe,” Adelaide repeats frigidly. “Don’t forget.” She gestures for Greg to open the door after she’s well enough away from whatever wind might barge into her home and disappears into her wool storage, clearly finished with her lowly errand girl. Beatrice imagines dropping a match on the balls of emerald green yarn closest to her and watching the whole cottage go up in flames.

Greg doesn’t say goodbye when Beatrice leaves. When she heads back out onto the road in the direction of home, it finally starts to rain.

**Author's Note:**

> Thought that the otgw tag could use some more love for Beatrice. Thank you to Tanicus - the author of the fantastic fic "Earth Angel" - for supporting me in showing Beacember to the world. They are responsible for the first and best prompt, "Beefatrice."
> 
> This fic was inspired by some art I've seen of this particular bad end. If you know what art I'm talking about, link me in the comments! And if you know of another fic that explored this scenario, also link me! I couldn't find any (not for lack of trying)


End file.
